Posts by Greg J Preece 2481 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009
Most companies I know (there are exceptions) won't let me have the OSX or Linux version just because I've already paid for the Windows version. Can't see it happening in the mobile world either (though again, there'll be exceptions).
Absolutely true, but there is an interesting exception: games. On Steam, if a game I own comes out for a new platform, I get it automatically. It's never been otherwise. It would be interesting if Valve eventually had that kind of influence on mobile apps. After all, there's a Steam mobile app. Not too much of a stretch to picture a Steam mobile games store that's cross platform.
With WebOS being open source now, it's pretty likely that there will be HTML5 -based apps available.
Actually, it's the other way round. HTML5 is being put forward as the primary development language, and they're debating whether the SLP-style Enlightenment APIs will be available. At least, that was the situation the last time I checked in.
I'm ecstatic that the 2.0-a SDK is out, personally. Aside from this being a spiritual successor to Maemo, which I loved like the runty child I will never have, the 1.0 SDK was 32-bit only, and refused to run in a chroot. Hell, it refused to run on the one 32-bit machine I dug out to try it on.
Seriously, who releases 32-bit only gear any more? I'm looking around the office and I don't think we have a single machine running a 32-bit OS.
This new version? Downloaded it yesterday, and it installed and ran perfectly first time. Finally! I've been wanting to play with this thing since the beginning of the year.
Are fantastic for this. Being a relatively tiny ISP, they're much more flexible and willing to listen. The few times I had to call them (turned out Openreach hadn't installed the line properly) they put a note on my account that basically read "this guy knows what he's doing." Never had to go through that "have you tried restarting your computer" bullshit ever again. Then again, I can't remember the last time I had to call them, the connection's so solid. Can't recommend them enough.
Yadda yadda, interface is shiny, yadda yadda, mass market, etc, etc...
Did any of you read my original post? The reviewer is claiming that the original was superior on a technical level, which is patently was not. I also admitted that the old smartphones were clunky. WM2003 did indeed have a horrible interface, but none of that changes that it was (and to some extent still is) technically superior to an iPhone.
You can blather about how shiny the interface is as much as you like, but that's not going to make the beginning of this review brown-nosing exercise any more accurate.
They were also really clunky. Feature phones had all the slick animations and nice interfaces, Smartphones had none of it. It was the iPhone that added all the nice animations and decent UI to smartphones.
Ah, so you're a magpie.
None of what you've listed makes the phone any smarter, which is the point he and I were contending.
I like the design and will probably getting one. Samsung et al keep making these screens bigger in the way Gillette keep adding more blades to their razors. That's not innovation!
So you're buying the iPhone 5, which has "bigger screen" listed as one of its new features...
That's not innovation!
It astonishes me that people so readily buy into this crap. How can you possibly refer to a phone that debuted without even copy & paste functionality or a 3G connection as some kind of fucking genesis? In fact, it's far more accurate to say that:
"When the iPhone debuted, it did very little of anything that was smart. It was a jumped-up feature phone, lacking almost every feature necessary to be called a smartphone."
Time was, smartphones did little that was actually smart. They had front-facing cameras and maybe a touchscreen, but operating systems geared more for a stylus than fingers. It wasn’t until the iPhone landed in 2007 that things changed
Couldn't even get past your opening paragraph. Are you fucking kidding me?
Prior to the iPhone arriving, I had several smartphones. Real ones. They had HSDPA, GPS, bluetooth, "apps", video playback, voice control, video calling, front and rear facing cameras. Basically, everything the iPhone 5 has, just clunkier and slower. If you can seriously write with a straight face that Apple invented the smartphone, you don't know what you're on about.
Is this really the best reviewer you have, El Reg?
A rather strange idea, since I cannot see how the Americas or the Pacific could ever have been reached or developed by the scientifically illiterate and backward people that Muslims became while Christendom struggled ever so slowly free of its mental shackles.
You really need to learn some history before saying such stunningly misinformed things. Ignoring the Christian-inspired dark ages completely (though I don't get how you could), you might want to look into the history of, oooh, let's say, Baghdad? The Islamic middle-eastern world was, at one time, a centre of learning.
Greg, you sound like you just want another 360/ps3 style console.
Then you've missed the point in stellar fashion, as confirmed by:
And why do you sound so angry that there's an alternative product rather than 3 very similar ones in different branded boxes?
I'm angry that their previous product barely bloody works, that they don't look after their customers post-sale, that their online service is atrocious, that the Wii U is clearly overpriced considering its technical inferiority, etc. The reasons you're giving stink of a strawman argument, because I don't appear to have said anything remotely like that.
The Wii is crap, its library of games are crap, and I don't want the replacement to do the same. Is there a way that I can say this that you will suddenly magically understand? I want the Wii U to be good, because the Wii wasn't, and they seem to be repeating themselves, which isn't a good sign.
Why should Nintendo fret about trying to get the "hardcore" market back when they can make money from the family friendly market and offer an alternative?
Again, they're the ones trumpeting Mass Effect and CoD. (Seriously, are you people even attempting to understand another viewpoint?) If they want the market back, they have to try harder.
Do you have any understanding of product development?
Do you have any understanding of the gaming market?
They're charging twice as much for this Wii as the previous one (assuming you buy the proper edition). Did you get that? Twice as much. But it is barely on the level of the current consoles in terms of performance, and doesn't have nearly as complete a feature set in terms of media playback/storage. You can buy a PS3 now, which comes with a blu-ray drive, etc out of the box, and it costs less than this thing.
Ignoring price for performance, what happens in another year when the machine is hopelessly outclassed again? One of the big problems with the Wii was that it just couldn't cope with the most popular games. It doesn't matter whether you like those mainstream titles or not (and personally, I'm not a big fan of many of them) - they form the foundation of a console's sales. If the Wii can't handle them, then it loses out in a big way. Why do you think they were trumpeting Mass Effect 3, Call of Duty, etc earlier this year? It's a huge crowd that Nintendo are currently missing, and the faddy crowd they did grab are far more fickle. By the time this thing comes out, even ME3 will be old hat.
If the Wii isn't even in the same generation in terms of hardware, then it can't get the latest cutting-edge games, end of story, and that will hurt it. Whether you like it or not, there's a huge swathe of gamers out there who go cuckoo-for-coco-puffs over the latest graphics.
Actually, while I'm thinking about it, there's another thing I missed from my earlier rant - the online service. The online portion of the Wii was abysmal, even worse than Sony's. I really hope they make massive strides in that area, because they really need to.
My Ps3 is 320gb too which is overkill because I don't download games.
You're in the minority.
Nintendo is more open
Bwhahahaha. Ah, that's amusing. Is that why they won't let you move your own save game slots between machines half the time? Though I suppose you really don't need a big hard drive if you're committed to never, ever patching games.
And I like how you switched to the 360 to avoid admitting that the PS3 drive is user-replaceable using many standard SATA drives, and comes with instructions on how to do it, as well as a full backup system.
Christ, the fanboys are out in force on this one. Toad, do you actually work for Ninty or something?
Personally, I'm unimpressed (shocker!). The Wii was gimmicky and cheap. This is just gimmicky, and to be honest, it's probably even further out of date in terms of hardware than the Wii was at launch. Wow, it can run Call of Duty properly now? You know that's a DirectX9 game, right? As soon as the new X-box/PS come out this thing will be left bleeding mainstream titles all over again.
The gameplay demos I've seen aren't any more impressive. Someone pointed me at ZombieU yesterday, which looked interesting until about 40 seconds into the trailer. Sure, it looks far more interesting than most Wii games, but then you look closer. An inventory system that takes far longer than most because of all the touchscreen stuff and doesn't pause the game while you're screen flicking. Switching between 1st and 3rd person perspectives. Constantly holding the tablet up at eye level for all the gimmicky shit they've crammed in, like sniper mode, scanner, etc.
(I will concede that RPGs could be friggin' awesome on this thing, but given previous form we're far more likely to get a set of games that constantly interrupt gameplay to show off the console they're running on, which is missing the ICBM-sized point.)
Yeah, yeah, I know what's coming next. "But that's not the point of the Wii, pick up and play, it's for kids, blah blah blah" So we can look forward to another library consisting of 90% shovelware? Joy. Deep, deep joy. My Wii is very rarely played, and even then my library for it consists almost entirely of arcade light gun ports, and GameCube games, which ironically are the best ones. I suppose the entire console was worth it just to have the first really good HOTD game in history, but it's been one long rollercoaster of disappointment for me. I can name 10 worthwhile games for it, 20 if I really think about it, and half of them I would recommend playing on other consoles.
Oh, and here's something I never hear brought up: if we're supporting old Wii controllers, does it support the ones before Motion Plus (you know, the broken ones)? Because that would be a horrible idea. With the Motion Plus being an optional extra, the vast majority of games didn't support it and suffered for it.
We had a Wii for the more family centric titles - then they died off and the Wii usage died off with it.
The Wii died when:
a) the fad wore off
b) Nintendo announced its replacement so far in advance they practically pulled a SEGA. Derp!
Ah yes the usual "not very exciting changes" post: well just LTE support while keeping the same battery life, larger screen, thinner, lighter and in a now mostly metal body.... oh and a better camera too finally with a good front camera for videochat.
You're missing the point, old bean. These changes aren't that exciting because people on other platforms have had them for donkey's years. I mean, browser sync? Really? That's on my N900, for feck's sake.
FUCK ME YOU'RE A GENIUS!
Just like that, eh? Wow, if only they had thought to "improve prospects for teenagers." It's just so clear and simple! Why can't we get something that brainless implemented TODAY?
Oh, right, your post is nothing but pisswaffle. Also, our government is big enough, thanks.
Really? Ever looked in the options menu of a console game?
No, being a PC gamer I never fiddle with options. (Where's the "rolling eyes" icon when you need it?)
I've tried messing with those settings, but if I make the joysticks fast enough to be anywhere near as responsive as a mouse when turning, then I find it even harder to aim properly, always overshooting the mark.
Mouse is generally better suited for anything involving looking and aiming. For those things it is genuinely better than thumbsticks, simply because of the response time involved in executing an action. Turning around can take several seconds, and fine aiming longer. With a mouse I can do it in a fraction of the time. (I play frequently on both kinds of controller.)
I wouldn't like to say that the console controllers are inherently less accurate, as I'm sure some people are daemons at aiming with them. For me, they are. I can aim to a much finer degree with a mouse, in much less time, with much smaller adjustments possible, and I find myself often cursing on console FPS games along the lines of "I wish I had a bloody mouse for this bit".
Plus, I can adjust the speed/resolution of my mouse via a couple of hardware buttons, letting me switch instantly between aiming types. That's useful in games like Killing Floor when I'm moving between my primary murder machine (say, a SCAR) and my secondary run-and-gun weapon (say, a shotgun). I can aim insanely accurately when the muties are at range, and when they get a bit cuddly I can switch weapons, jack the res and run for it.
Not that I game much. *Cough*
"The fact that they use manure for fertilizers is pretty damn logical, that is exactly how the planet has been doing it for billions of year"
Trying and failing to follow that "logic". Given that the whole point of human civilisation is basically improving on nature (your current life expectancy is most definitely not down to natural causes), why should we not seek to do the same with our farming methods?
PostgreSQL is great. Being initially a PHP coder, and taught by a certain Kevin Yank, I naturally tended toward MySQL for my DB hobbyist gear. But that was back in my school years. After going full-time and being put to work on an open-source cross-platform project, I was exposed to all four major databases, and using PostgreSQL alongside MySQL all day long just highlights to you how much useful functionality is/was missing from the latter.
A couple of years ago MySQL stopped being the inferior but familiar solution, and started actively annoying me. I tried using PostgreSQL as my primary platform and never looked back. It's fast, easy to understand, open source, and comes with everything I need. I love it.
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